“Hey Charlie, I’m ba-..” 

Mila interrupted herself as she heard the girl’s voice from the living room, softly singing something she didn’t recognize. She paused at the door and then carefully closed it without making a sound. Charlie was so absorbed in her music that she hadn’t seemed to notice Mila come in. The vampire silently leaned against the entryway wall to listen, her eyes on that golden curtain of hair that hid Charlie’s face from view. Her voice was beautiful. She had real talent. She needed a producer, someone to get her into a good studio, to record a demo, to get her noticed. Maybe if she had someone to help her get her foot in the door, someone who knew how to get people’s attention, how to make the right friends, how to manipulate their way to the top, someone like…

Mila stopped herself. She was being ridiculous. That kind of thinking would only get in the way of what she was here to do, and right now that was to open a bottle of wine and get this girl pleasantly buzzed and deliciously flustered. Plotting ways to help Charlie’s music career would not get Mila anywhere closer to sinking her teeth in her neck. In fact, the longer Charlie continued on as an aspiring artist/part time waitress, the better off Mila would be in this little arrangement. ...And yet, somehow, the thought was unpleasant… She imagined her roommate years from now, still bent over her guitar, her only audience the neighbors and of course the monster that was sucking the life right out of her…

Mila blinked as Charlie sang out the last wavering note, snapping out of her unsettling train of thought. 

“Bravo,” she said softly, moving into the living room to sit on the sofa opposite the girl. “Your voice is lovely.” All day she had been musing about how she planned to coax Charlie into playing something and then to gush about how wonderful she was until the girl’s ears turned red. But now, feeling caught off-guard by that passionate song and her own twinge of – what was it…guilt? Impossible. Enough of that. Mila suddenly sat up a bit straighter, her melancholic expression vanishing in a flash. It was quickly replaced by the same sly playfulness that had danced over her features before. 

“You can’t tell me you don’t win hearts with that,” she teased, “because I know it isn’t true.” She stood up again and stretched. She was wearing a different outfit now, looking much more casual but still elegant in a black sweater that hung off her ivory shoulders, and skinny jeans that made her seem taller and more slender than ever. 

“Brought some stuff with me,” she had already moved to the door to pick up two large suitcases in the entryway and was dragging them to her room. “I have more in the car but I’ll tackle that in the morning.” She came back and sank into couch, sitting next to Charlie this time. “Because I’m exhausted.” She grinned and reached out to gently pluck a string on the guitar in Charlie’s lap. “And ready for a movie night. You must be a little beat too, I noticed you did some spring cleaning. You didn’t have do have to that for me.”